How Romance Writers Are Thriving In The Gig Economy

IT WOULD EXPLAIN MUCH:  Could getting rid of dairy be making you dumb?

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Men Are More Attractive When Desired By Other Women, Study Finds

Ceramic Artist Dora De Larios, 84…

"Throughout her career, De Larios' work took singular forms - as small, sprightly sculptures of animals and towering goddesses - inspired by her interest in pre-Columbian craft and ancient Japanese design." … [Read More]

~ Los Angeles Times

• Krasnostein Wins $125K Literary Prizes

  Sarah Krasnostein, the author of 'The Trauma Cleaner,' won top honors at Australia's 2018 Victorian Premier’s literary awards.

"But poems are not poems if they make people feel dead. I want people to feel alive – even if it is alive with grief." The Guardian profiles poetDanez Smith about poetry; race, gender, and queerness; and their poetry collection, Don't Call Us Dead (a finalist for the National Book…

This is so baked into our society I feel like we forget it's there. To steal from David Foster Wallace, this is the water we swim in. The female price of male pleasure

• Be What You Are
  
  

  This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps, about arts organizations’ initial efforts in community engagement. The premises are twofold. First, since relationship building is the core of community engagement, attempting to do ... read more
  Engaging Matters
  
  
  

  The first time we see Darth Vader doing more than heavy breathing in Star Wars (1977), he’s strangling a man to death. A few scenes later, he’s blowing up a planet. He kills his subordinates, chokes people with his mind, does all kinds of things a good guy would never do. But then the nature of a bad guy is that he does things a good guy would never do. Good guys don’t just fight for personal gain: they fight for what’s right – their values. 

  
  

  This moral physics underlies not just Star Wars, but also film series such as The Lord of the Rings(2001-3) and X-Men (2000-), as well as most Disney cartoons. Virtually all our mass-culture narratives based on folklore have the same structure: good guys battle bad guys for the moral future of society. These tropes are all over our movies and comic books, in Narnia and at Hogwarts, and yet they don’t exist in any folktales, myths or ancient epics. In Marvel comics, Thor has to be worthy of his hammer, and he proves his worth with moral qualities. But in ancient myth, Thor is a god with powers and motives beyond any such idea as ‘worthiness’. Latitude of Jedis the Battles between good and evil as well as clingingly indifferent
  
  

  Why Russians Are Churning Out Dozens Of Parodies Of A 15-Year-Old Music Video

  
  

  It started when just over a dozen cadets at the air transport academy, wearing very little, did a lip-synch cover of Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction." The effect was rather Tom of Finland, which got them in trouble when the powers-that-be found the video online. Masha Gessen recounts what happened next - "a story of spontaneous solidarity, self-organization, and, ultimately, just possibly, the triumph of freedom over bureaucracy." … Read More

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sex In The Middle Ages – There Was More Of It, And More Sophistication About It, Than You’d Think

  
  

  Which is not to say that all the ideas they had about sex in medieval Europe were scientifically or medically sound, mind you. But they weren't exactly prudes. …Read More

  
  
  ‘It Was the First Time I Cried in the Operating Room’ Der Spiegel
  
  The Internet Makes Life Better and Safer for Sex Workers. Obviously. Reason
  
  
  
  

  How Romance Writers Are Thriving In The Gig Economy

  
  

  
  

  “Although few have reached the flabbergasting success of “Fifty Shades” author E.L. James, a former fan fiction writer whose net worth now totals more than $58 million, I found that the median income for romance authors has tripled in the e-book era. And more and more are earning a six-figure income. This uptick occurred as other types of writing became less profitable. During the same period, a survey of 1,095 Authors Guild members found that their median income from writing fell by at least 30 percent.”